


a bloodstained divide

by Gerbilfriend



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: A little, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Joo-do seeing yona and having feels, POV Outsider, Relationship Study, Self-Indulgent, Yona and Joo-do talk, a little bit AU, bc i didn't feel like time framing it, post chapter 100 with no spoilers, very self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26369581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerbilfriend/pseuds/Gerbilfriend
Summary: Han Joo-doh did not want to be at some culturally important to the Earth Tribe festival that involved masks. He really didn't.He didn't want to run into the girl he had guarded and betrayed either.Unfortunately he didn't get a choice
Relationships: Han Joo-Doh & Yona, Yona & Zeno (Akatsuki no Yona)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 75





	a bloodstained divide

**Author's Note:**

> because i am having feels

He had lost his king in the crush of the festival. Joo-doh tried very hard not to swear as he looked for tell tale light brown hair over the crush and ruckus of the crowd. 

It was the only sign because of course this was a festival of masks. That just made the whole thing even better then it would have been.

He didn’t see it.

_ When I find that king again I’ll- _

Joo-doh kept looking, letting the familiar litany run in his head.

Nothing.

No king at least.

He did, however see a horse barrelling his way, the rider obviously drunk. 

Were there people behind him-

Being thrown to the dirt hurt. The feeling of the mask digging into his face hurt. 

It took them both a few moments to untangle. He saw red hair in the corner of his eye.

“Are you okay?”.

The voice confirmed it.

_ Yona.  _

“I’m fine”, he said automatically. 

“That's good, I was worried”.

“So you just decided to jump in front of the horse!”. Oh. He was shouting. Shouting like Yona was still ten years old and not the girl he had condemned to death, “Of all the reckless, fool harty things to-”.

“Joo-doh?”. Yona’s hands were over her mouth as the litany stopped.

There was nothing he could say. 

Of course the mask fell off. Somehow of course that would happen. 

“Yona”.

The name tastes like ashes and blood in his mouth. It tasted like war and death.

Like betrayal.

Around them a festival was going on. Somewhere in the crowd was his king. Somewhere in the crowd was Hak and the strange men that traveled with Yona.

None of them were there.

It was just Joo-doh and Yona.

Betrayer and betrayed. 

He felt the words on his tongue, the ones he wanted to say so desperately.  _ I’m glad you are safe and run away before i have to kill you and stay out of Kouka and-  _

They wouldn’t come out.

All he could do was stare as Yona slipped her mask off. Her eyes were shadowed, flickering between the light of the torches and the shadows of their loss.

One moment she was the girl he had watched grow up.

The next she wasn’t.

She had a sword at her waist now and he could see the calluses on her hands. He had seen her shoot a bow before.

He had seen her hit her mark.

One shot. One death.

_ Had she always been capable of that? _

Joo-doh didn’t know. 

They were both standing, frozen in a moment neither of them knew how to break.

Then there was a scream.

Suddenly he was running because if something was going wrong then he needed to be there five minutes ago and-

Crimson was running at his side as they pushed through the crowd, Yona was keeping pace with him.

There was another scream.

This one was louder. 

He kept running. 

Yona was running as well, keeping pace with him in a way he never would have dreamed of as they ducked and dodged, two unmasked faces in a festival of chaos.

It was a gory sight in the alley, a man with a knife to his throat while a woman stared on, even with the mask Joo-doh knew she was terrified.

He could smell the man's fear from where he was. 

Yona was next to him. 

_ Not now!  _ Joo-doh knew there were thieves and murders at the festival. It was why he was so annoyed at his idiot king for wandering off like he did.

They existed. Joo-doh knew that.

That didn’t mean he wanted to deal with them.

“Let him go”, Yona commanded and there was no way Joo-do could mistake it for anything else. None at all.

“Put down your weapons”, the voice rasped.

Joo-do really did not want to disarm himself. 

A trickle of blood ran down the nameless man's neck. The women looked like she was about to scream again when another masked man seemed to emerge behind her, forcing her into a choke hold. 

“None of that now”, he said, almost friendly before refocusing on Yona and him. “Dropping your weapons would be a good idea right now”.

They didn’t have a choice.

His sword dropping to the ground felt like defeat.

Yona’s sword was even worse. For all his worry about what he was supposed to do he hadn’t anticipated this at all.

“Now come over here and leave your valuables, then leave us to our night. Those swords can stay as well”.

“What about those two?”, Yona demanded and Joo-doh wanted to tell her to be quiet, to stop drawing attention even through he knew he had lost that right.

“I think we’ll be having some more fun with these two. You both are very lucky that there are only two of us right now. If I was in your place I would be taking advantage of that”.

Joo-doh really hated the mask. It made everything so much harder to read.

“What about a trade?”. Yona’s voice didn’t shake.

“A trade?”.

“Me for him”.

Joo-doh wanted to protest but he heard something in Yona’s voice, a reminder of a million and one childhood schemes.

“You would really trade yourself like that?”. The masked figure sounded curious.

Joo-doh wanted to kill him.

“I would”.

“Interesting”.

_ He is the one with the knife.  _ The other man just had the women in a choke hold.

Yona definitely had a plan.

Joo-doh just hoped it was a good one.

_ She’s survived this far against all odds. _

Yona definitely had a plan.

It really wasn’t at all reassuring. Joo-doh remembered some of Yona’s plans.

She was committed through, he didn’t have a choice but to follow her lead.

It happened in moments, just the slightest of tells and Yona was lunging as the man was dropped, somehow twisting the knife out of the masked man's hand and-

Joo-doh was lunging too, separating the women from her captor in the moments and the women was crashing to the ground as the masked man dropped and-

The other man fell as well. Joo-doh saw the glint of steel in Yona’s hand.

A dagger she had palmed.

_ What would your father think?  _ He almost said it.

He didn’t. 

It didn’t matter. He had helped to make sure of that. 

Yona’s clothes were as crimson as her hair as she let the corpse drop, immediately going to the man she had saved and talking in soothing words as she guided him over to the women.

All Joo-doh could do was watch.

He wasn’t good at this part.

“Miss!” a voice shouted from behind, sharp with worry and an edge of danger like a blade about to be drawn.

He didn’t want to turn around, even as fighters instincts told him he needed to. Other instincts, older instincts were telling him to stay quiet and very still and hope that he got ignored by whatever was behind him.

“It's not my blood”, Yona was saying. 

“This miss isn’t hurt?”.

“I’m fine”, and suddenly for the first time there was a stutter in Yona’s voice, “Joo-doh was just helping because we both heard the screams. He fought that guy over there”, Yona said, pointing at one of the corpses on the ground.

Suddenly the sense of danger was gone. “the miss should be more careful or the lad will fuss about the bloodstains again”, a voice scolded Yona as a vaguely familiar blond came into view, looking completely incongruous with the predator that Joo-doh had felt leaning over his shoulder.

Yona looked down and she still made the exact same sheepish expression she had when she was five and knew she was about to get scolded for getting covered in mud again. “I just needed to make sure that they were okay”.

“The lad won’t be too mad since it's the miss, Zeno knows”.

“You think?”, and Yona’s face was smiling for the first time that night but Joo-doh couldn’t focus on that, not when he recognized how Zeno was standing.

Guard to guard. 

Zeno was guarding Yona, as bizarre as it seemed.

_ I am someone Yona needs to be protected from. _

It was true.

It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt because there had once been a time when he would have stepped between Yona and the world, when he would have died for her.

That time was dead now.

Now Yona smiled at a strange teenager who laughed with her, “the miss shouldn’t wander off so much either”.

“I didn’t mean too”.

“Zeno knows, Zeno knows”, there was a mischievous glint in Zeno’s eyes, “the miss can’t help being short”.

Yona huffed like she was twelve years old.

Except twelve year old Yona wasn’t covered in blood after killing someone. That was this Yona. This Yona who he barely knew and-

“Joo-doh?”.

“Yes?”. Apparently he was capable of speaking in words again.

“Will you look after these two?”. It didn’t sound like a request.

“I will”.

For a moment he felt pinned down by Yona’s eyes. Felt like he was being judged.

“Thank you”, she turned to Zeno, “you know where the others are, right?”.

“Zeno does! But the Miss should be careful about coming back so bloody, she scared Zeno”.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you-”, Yona was saying as they were walking around him, Zeno closer and Joo-doh knew that Zeno had planned it that way in case he changed his mind and-

“I’ll have to tell him. Soo-won”.

Yona turned to look at him, silhouetted by the fires of the festival outside the ally and splattered with drying blood.

“I know”. There was no condemnation in her eyes, no disappointment.

She hadn’t expected anything else from him.

“Yona I-”.

He couldn’t say it.

Yona was already gone.


End file.
